Seven

I hear thunder,
see more lightning
than the sky can hold.

Some expected

a pre-programmed planetary shift
in consciousness from
fears to love,
delusions to knowledge,
illusions to unobstructed vision.

Others of less noble heart

had other plans.

On the seventh day prior

to the rumored stellar divide,
a dark green reptilian
slit of an eye
opens in the center
of a formerly human brain,
sees options narrow,
starts to panic,
sends scopolamined
implant-guided killers
into shopping malls and schools,
random domestic terrorist shock-troops
to instill the necessary degree of fear
to insure maximum compliance
when the heavily armed
Kevlar-coated federal employees
later secure the perimeter,
conducting house-to-house searches
in Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, Phoenix,
Austin, New Orleans, Atlanta, Richmond
Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, New York,
Rome, Moloch and Hell,
confiscating guns and gold,
arresting anyone who shows
a moment’s hesitation
following the Emperor’s orders,
shooting anyone who resists
or tries to run.

At least,

the mystery of how they’d ever
find a way to keep paying
the soldiers was finally solved.

Veterans lead anti-war marches,
and old hippies start training hard
for hours in the desert
in full battle fatigues
executing maneuvers,
perfectly triangulated kill-zones
laid down from on high.

The Buddha says that

there are seven
wings of Awakening—
mindfulness, the analysis of qualities, persistence,
rapture, serenity, concentration, equanimity.

On these wings

no Earthly air force rides,
but radiant seagulls,
timeless recognition.

The geometry of awareness

may be shaped by cosmic cycles
in ways our kind will keep
failing to grasp for at least
another hundred thousand years.
 
We may hurtle with our closest star
through space to a rendezvous
with some hitherto
unknown punk brown dwarf
binary brother of the sun
returning from
long elliptical travels void-ward
now waiting to greet us at closest approach
after twenty five thousand years or so
playing the prodigal star
through empty temporal hollows,
wet gravity wells
quivering with fear and craving,
wormholes to the next
amniotic sac.

Even if true,

how could it matter?

It was no omnipotent God of compassion

who slaughtered 28 strangers today.

No random bastard

put a bullet through his own head
vaporizing the implant,
destroying connection
with the point of transmission.

None of this is real.

None of it.

This tape will self-destruct in

10, 9, 8,
seven…

Eight

On the eighth day, God created the week, and saw that it was very good. God saw the first day’s sun rise again, all beings become new again, and God blessed the history-less infinitude saying “See how time is undone, vanishes the instant it arises!”

– Regenesis, Ch.2,v.12-13

12-13-12

when the digits
in the pairs
are added becomes
3-4-3
add up to 10
whose digits sum
to one.

So the eighth day
before the 21^st
will become one,
as will we.

There is no more reason to believe
this numerological whimsy,
than end-times prophecy
based on ancient Mayan calculations
of long-term cyclic stellar precession
that even the Mayans
never believed signified
the world’s demise.

But quite a lot,
I suppose,
depends on what is meant
by “the world.”

Given this one—
ruled by psychopaths
with nuclear weapons—
part of me is shocked
every morning I wake up,
wonder how the hell
this could’ve happened,
why I’m not already well
on my way into the next
incarnation.

As a Buddhist,
I find this very difficult
to explain without reference
to divine intervention
(most definitely not
a standard Buddhist tenet);
nonetheless,
I’ve somehow
accidentally learned to live
with the cognitive dissonance,
embrace it even,
drink deeply
from the contradictions
until they become one,
as will we.

This Thursday the Thirteenth
is cold where I live,
and the stars are invisible
to we tourists blinded
behind rain-clouds and night.

They shine just the same,
and likely will still
on the 22^nd of December,
as will we.

I hear thunder.

Nine

Do not believe in something because it is reported. Do not believe in something because it has been practiced by generations or becomes a tradition or part of a culture. Do not believe in something because a scripture says it is so. Do not believe in something believing a god has inspired it. Do not believe in something a teacher tells you to. Do not believe in something because the authorities say it is so. Do not believe in hearsay, rumor, speculative opinion, public opinion, or mere acceptance of logic and inference alone. Help yourself—accept as completely true only that which is praised by the wise and which you test for yourself and know to be good for yourself and others.

 

—The Buddha, The Kalama Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya 3.65, Sutta Pitaka, Pali Canon

As above, so below.
As within, so without.
It is a pyramidal hall of mirrors,
a reflection of threes
in every direction.

Believe nothing you see here;
none of it is real.

12-12-12—
add the pairs of digits
begetting 3-3-3,
the thrice-holy triple trinity
in summary communion
becoming 9,
the number of days left
in the numbered days of myth
until the longest night,
the least expected dawn.

On this day of paradox,
passing by its detritus
in these lengthening shadows,
witnessing the extrusion
of confused deluded illusion,
something from before
the first calendar was
ever carved in stone
rises from beyond
the useless boxes built
by aging oligarchs unmasked,
dethroned by fearlessness
rising in a single human mass,
surrounding the fortress,
making the arrests.

Today,
or perhaps tonight
in just the instant
before the veils come down
and the lights go out,
around the world
through every chest
will pass at least
a single strike
of pure peace.

Pass into it
and through it
to each other
when the door opens.

There will be
nine
ways to do that.

Ten

Of all the prophecies
truly or falsely made,
few can rival
a Mayan calendar's terminal date
for lack of factual basis
on which to rest an expectation
of apocalyptic changes.

Yet they come.

Whose interests

are so mightily served
by the propagation
of this arbitrary date,
its consecration
with the credible immutability
of cosmic cycles?

“As unavoidable as gravity!”
booms a synthesized voice
from the soundless mile-wide
shimmering white metal disk
hovering motionless
just under the clouds.

I remember lights

in the sky at night—
star-brilliant flashing beams,
some red,
others green or blue.

I remember impossible maneuvers

by lightning-fast craft
of varying forms,
functions and designs,
none of which
involved wings.

I remember panic and confusion

in the streets,
thousands fleeing,
nowhere to hide.

I remember being calm.

Even then,

it wasn’t my first time.

It wasn’t yours

either.

Mission Unknown

It’s been many years
since I’ve had this sense
of being involved
in a conspiracy so deeply secret
that I,
and other key participants,
would know nothing about it
until the moment of action
arrives.

Again,
it lingers around the edges,
bumps against the hull
with every hypnogogic wave
until a readiness to hear
begins to form.

Even then,
the plan remains
a mystery.

Only the requisite skills
are revealed,
the training curriculum outlined,
expected completion dates
settled and clarified.

Then
the bumping at night
from under the sea
just past the cabin walls
subsides
as the long silent marathon
begins in earnest
topside.

We will be told
all we need to know
when we need to know it.

We will
be ready.